


Miles Maitland's Happy Ending

by ashleecraft



Category: Bright Young Things, Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gay, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Miles needs a hug, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Soulmates, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Loathing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-08-19 11:56:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20209351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleecraft/pseuds/ashleecraft
Summary: Set directly after Miles' final scene in Bright Young Things. Miles has just lost everything, & it's up to him to figure out how to move on from the terrible dark feelings that have engulfed him & rise again. It's the heartbreaking & life-affirming story of how Miles heals from the traumas of his past & the homophobia he's experienced & finds the courage to let himself love & be loved again. Mostly though, it's the story of how Miles finds the courage & the confidence at some deep beautiful place inside him to learn to love himself & in doing so, finds his own happy ending.





	1. but they never cared about you, did they?

**Author's Note:**

> I intend for this to be a novel-length story. Miles is seriously one of my favorite characters ever & I love him so much, so I'm really looking forward to writing this!
> 
> The first part of the book is going to largely be angst as he tries to find his footing again & the second part is where it becomes more of a feel-good story, so after further chapters are written, I'll make a note where things get happy for him in case you ONLY want to read the "happy ending" part & can't stand seeing poor Miles experiencing any more angst. But the beginning part is going to be a continuation of his angst & heartbreak in his last scene in the film.
> 
> Miles is going to be struggling with a lot of feelings of self-loathing in the angst part of the book, especially in relation to his homosexuality, as well as some mental health issues & self-destructive/suicidal feelings & actions at times. Chapters containing these themes will contain a warning of their content.
> 
> I'm also aware that for a lot of LGBTQ+ folks in the 20's/30's & beyond wouldn't have had such a happy ending as this, so this is also kind of written in honor of the ones who did not have happy endings equally to the ones who did.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles, as he leaves Agatha's room at the mental hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning**  
1\. Some homophobia (mostly Miles towards himself)  
2\. Detailed depressed & lonely feelings  
3\. Self-loathing

_Tiger —_

He would not allow himself to think about _— him._

Miles put his sunglasses back on. He could feel the tears bubbling up again, from somewhere deep & horrid inside his chest. He’d already broken the veil of invulnerability he’d wrapped tight around himself, & now it was time to wrap the suffocating plastic of it even tighter around his body.  
  
Part of him wanted to stick around, to smother himself in the costume he was used to wearing, to put on a happy face & pretend everything was quite okay.

_You always knew it was going to end, _whispered the fatalistic voice in the back of his mind. _It's always been a race to the end._  
  
“Miles is in a scrape again.” He’d said in a tone he hoped came across somewhat brightly. To Nina. _Dear Nina._  
  
_The poor soul has enough to worry about as it is. It would be cruel to lay your heavy burden down upon her back too._

But the other part of him?

This part of him that wanted to burn away the costume, to display his grief in all its blood-&-guts glory, like a morbid display in a shop window — this part of him wanted them to hurt too. And he felt very selfish for that, for wanting to make his friends sad —  
  
Anger rose up inside him for a split second, & he wasn’t sure whether it was more directed towards his friends who failed to show they were genuinely worried about him, or towards himself, who’d failed to be the sort of person people cared enough for to worry about.  
  
_Where are their tears? Where are their offers of assistance, their deep, heartrending sympathy, their heartbroken concern over what is going to become of me —_  
  
An anger which quickly dissolved into a violent paroxysm of heartbreaking guilt, & underneath this guilt ached the broken scab of vulnerability.  
  
_I just want someone to —_  
  
His mind couldn’t form the words, but cried out in a single image of a trembling, sobbing figure being held & soothed & murmured to that _everything was going to be okay_.  
  
No one had told him that. No one had asked him if he was really going to be okay. Adam had made a feeble attempt to hug him, but no one had asked him —  
  
He felt completely alone in the world.  
  
_Why don’t they care?_

_Why don’t they care?_

_Why don’t they —_  
  
He glanced around at their faces. _Poor, dearest Aggie —_  
  
His heart broke for her. She wouldn't understand in the state she was in that he was leaving; he'd have to write her a letter. He didn't expect tenderness from her, not now. But Adam & Nina were looking at each other, not at him. He was well aware that they had their own problems, but _—_

Something inside him yearned desperately for them to show even an ounce of the vulnerability he’d been forced to show, instead of treating the whole situation like just another tragedy in a long string of tragedies.  
  
And the thought clawed at him, like a great black bird, until he felt the floor fall away beneath him & the claws digging at his skin. His vision tunneled.  
  
_They do not want you here._  
  
_Don’t you realize?_  
__  
You were never important to them. You were only ever a pretty thing they kept around to assuage their boredom.  
  
Miles took one last glance at his friends & at dear Aggie, _one last glance, _& walked out into the hallway of an empty world that did not want him.


	2. he will understand --

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to what Miles is thinking on the train ride home from the race track after Tiger storms out & goes home. Miles is terribly worried about whether Tiger will ever be able to forgive Agatha for what happened at the race, & he reflects on Agatha & what she means to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER TWO IS HERE!!!!! This is so much fun to write & I've already got the next few chapters planned out :)
> 
> **Content Warning:  
**  
1\. Some homophobia (mostly Miles' homophobic feelings towards himself.)  
2\. Suicidal feelings are briefly implied  
3\. An abusive relationship is briefly implied  
4\. Plenty of self-loathing
> 
> The next chapter is going to be DARK & really sad & Miles is going to go through some truly heartbreaking things, because in the next chapter we find out HOW Miles learned about Tiger reporting him to the police. This one is an interlude to it & is mostly about Miles vs Agatha vs Tiger.
> 
> ALSO, NOTES ON THIS CHAPTER:  
1\. The chapter where Miles finds out about Tiger reporting him was originally going to be Chapter 2. But after writing a bit about Miles reflecting on how much he cares about Agatha, I realized that the tone of that bit was a lot different than the tone of what below I have made Chapter 2, so I decided to divide the chapter into two different chapters.  
2\. Because this is going to be a long work, smaller chapters make longer works easier to read IMO.  
3\. After seeing how much everyone enjoyed Chapter 1, I decided to get another chapter out here sooner rather than making everyone wait until the much-longer (what will be) Chapter 3 is done.  
4\. Chapter 3 is partially written, so it should be up in the not-too-distant-future.  
5\. This chapter's reminder that MILES IS GOING TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING IN THE END BUT FIRST HE HAS TO REALLY GO THROUGH SOME SHIT.

<strike></strike> _Just keep walking.  
__You've almost got this -_

He held his head high. He kept his chin, right up in the air, just as – just as he'd always been told to do when everything was crumbling. Except this time, it was much worse.

_So much worse – _

Everything wasn't merely crumbling; it was all _dying, _beautiful piece by beautiful piece.

And almost everything had already been destroyed. The rest, the very last of it, _would be gone soon too_. He reached about, as if he were trapped in a dark corridor trying to find the door before the oxygen ran out, but the last vestiges of the joy he finally thought he'd found slipped away like ephemeral dreams, & all he found living inside the hollow world were ghosts –

He forced his lips into a smile, & tried his best to walk with the air of someone confident. Someone invincible. Someone who was on top of the world, someone who had it all, someone who could handle anything –

_Poor Agatha. Poor, dear Agatha.  
_ _I hope she – _

After Miles had heard about Agatha being found with Tiger's car & being put into the mental hospital, he’d immediately yearned to go visit her. 

_To see if she’s really mad, oh, that should be so interesting! Perhaps she’s just pretending; that would be a laugh._

That’s what he'd have told someone like Nina if she would have asked him why he cared. But if he had let the quiet voice in the back of his mind that was trying to be heard over the noise sneak through the crowd & come to the front to speak the _truth, _he would have instead heard:

_I do hope she’s okay. I’m so very worried about her. She’s always been fragile. What if they keep her locked up in there forever & never let us see each other again? Who’s going to stay by my side & keep me sane as party after party drones on? What if she never gets to be happy again?...and...and what if she — dies? — in there?_

And the fear of that, of losing the one companion who’d, for some reason, _always _been there with him, gripped & squeezed at his heart like nothing else.

He _loved _Agatha.

Which is why Miles, as he'd gotten on the train home after the race, had been so terrified that what had transpired earlier, with Agatha waving her blue flag & taking Tiger’s car & disappearing with it & making Tiger lose the race & look like a fool in front of _his _friends, would cause a permanent & irreparable rift between her & Miles' husband.

Oh! So dearly did he ache for Agatha & Tiger to get along with one another -

Miles trembled a little inside. He was aware things at the racetrack hadn’t gone well — he’d tried his best to comfort Tiger. He’d offered him his flask. He’d taken off his coat & laid it across his husband’s back. He’d petted his hair (discreetly, for he knew Tiger’s friends were much less tolerant than his own). And he had felt Tiger, shaking with rage, & he had murmured comforting sweet nothings to him, & later, tried making a joke of Agatha’s driving off in Tiger’s car.

Nothing had worked.

He’d tried every single thing he could think of to cool Tiger down. But none of it had stopped his husband from storming off & taking a train home.

_He’s probably cooled down by now._  
_I do hope so. He does have a tendency to be cross.  
_ _And when he’s upset, sometimes –_

_Enough about that. Surely Tiger will find it in his heart to forgive her, especially because surely she didn't mean any harm by that. The poor dear probably wasn't even aware of what she was doing. She wasn't in her right mind..._

Oh, but what if Tiger never could forgive Agatha? The potentiality of that idea consumed Miles, & he could feel the fact that _THIS COULD POSSIBLY BE REAL _clenching inside his chest, crushing at something inside him like an automobile running over a tin can.

But what if he didn't understand she didn't mean to do it? What if he thought she'd taken his car on purpose & wanted to report her to the police? Or perhaps, what if he somehow blamed Miles for the whole incident?

_What if he makes me choose? What if he gives me an ultimatum – it's him or her? _

He couldn't imagine a life without Agatha. But Tiger was his _husband – _

Still, he knew in a heartbeat that he would always, _always _pick her. _Always._

He'd met Agatha when he was sixteen. They were both the same age. There had been a party at Maitland Manor, & Agatha had been in attendance with her parents. Miles had noticed her briefly earlier in the evening, mostly because she'd been wearing a bow tie with a collared dress, & Miles had never seen a girl wearing a bow tie, & he'd thought it was _fantastic – _

But he hadn't really noticed her, not until she'd been the one to walk in on him curled up in an empty room sobbing & clutching a bottle of alcohol & hating himself very, very much –

“It's okay to be queer.” She'd told him, & he'd looked into her eyes, & he knew she meant it with utmost certainty, & he knew then that she was the only person he'd ever met who would never hate him for the curse he'd been born with tattooed across his skin. Except that moment was the first time in his life, his life meaning since he was nine & he'd first become aware that he'd seen a boy & that boy had been _cute, _& the curse had beat louder & louder with each passing year that _THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG WITH YOU FOR FEELING THAT WAY_, that moment was the first time in his life when he felt that maybe it wasn't a curse at all, but something mysterious & wonderful & warm that simply remained alien to others & that maybe it was something that one day the world would discover & understand & appreciate. And in that idea, there was a great hope which contained a blossoming, light-soaked hope that _maybe someday he could let people could know who he really was, & maybe they would love him not despite it, but for it._

And she had been there for him ever since. And he had been there for her. Through _everything_.

He would always choose her. _Always._

But the weight clenched around his heart even harder, & he hoped with everything inside him that he would never be made to choose.

_Tiger will understand. _The optimist inside him whispered.

If only he'd known what awaited him when he'd walked into Tiger's flat –  
If only he'd known how quickly the apocalypse could strike down every living thing & turn the blossoming world to dust –  
If only he'd known that this day, this most happy day of friends & races & joyfulness, was going to be the _very last day_ –

But he didn't know all that.

And, not knowing this, he let himself into Tiger's flat.

_He will forgive her.  
_ _He will understand – _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed the brief glimpse into the scene where Miles & Agatha meet & are thinking OMG I WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT THAT, comfort yourself by knowing that in a later chapter of this story, I am going to tell the full story of that scene & expand on everything & it's going to be super soft & life-affirming <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fanfiction, & it's going to be a long one, so look out for additional chapters!


End file.
